Mash & Hoax

Just when you (well, when I) thought BoingBoing had devolved into nothing but "Xeni is on TV again," and "Cory has another promotional event tomorrow," the site comes through with some great stuff.

First: None other than Xeni links to "Wu Orleans," in which DJ BC has mixed various pieces of New Orleans music with the raps of the Wu Tang Clan. It's pretty great. "Dirty Brass," mashing Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Old Dirty Bastard, for instance, is wonderful. "Boxing Fats Domino," featuring Fats and various Wu Tang members, is also pretty hot. It seems that none of this involved, you know, copyright clearance, so I don't know how long it will be available. Give it a listen, whodi.

And then: Xeni comes through again, with a pointer to this CNN story about The Yes Men, pretending to be a HUD official, informing an official gathering of 1,000 contractors at the Gulf Coast Reconstruction and Hurricane Preparedness Summit that HUD wasn't going to tear down the projects after all. CNN's site summarizes:

"This year, in New Orleans, I'm ashamed to say we have failed," he said.

To change that, HUD would reverse its plans to demolish 5,000 units "of perfectly good public housing," with housing in the city in tight supply, he said.

Former occupants have been "begging to move back in," he said. "We're going to help them to do that."

The government's practice had been to tear down public housing where it could, because such projects were thought to cause crime and unemployment, he said.

But crime rates in the city are at a record high and there is no evidence that people in the projects are more likely to be unemployed, he said.

The man added that it also would be essential to create conditions for prosperity.

Toward that end, he said, Wal-Mart would withdraw its stores from near low-income housing and "help nurture local businesses to replace them."

According to CNN, a HUD spokesperson called the hoax "sick."